The root node

Treat personal development as your most important job, which, it is

That which we can be, we must be. - Abraham Maslow

We all feel we have the potential for greatness. After all, nobody thinks they are average. You are probably an above average driver, right? And an above average lover and have above average intelligence. Obviously, think can’t all be true. We can’t all be above average. But yet, each of us possess the potential for greatness. So, how do we tap into that greatness?

In the world of sports (and just in general), your body is your product. If you don’t take care of it, it is not going to perform how you want it to. Maximizing your performance will depend on how you treat your body. How seriously you take your rest, recovery, nutrition, and all the little things that eventually add up to become the really big things.

Step 1 in turning your life around is to take that same level of obsession and apply it to all parts of your life. What are the minimum number of levers that you have to pull to get the maximum effect? You don’t want to be busy for nothing - you want to be effective. Look for similarities in all the feedback you get from mentors and the research you collect. You will find (generally) that there are only four levers you need to pull - the four spheres of influence.

Mindset

Think about quantum concepts. The word quantum is mesmerizing, strange, and scintillating. It means the smallest discrete unit of a phenomenon. It can apply to mindset as well. It is the idea that thinking has power and that thinking power has the potential to affect reality. Knowing one’s inner quantum self can lead to a better version of ourselves.

1. Growth Mindset
2. The Pyramid mindset
3. Mental models and framework thinking
4. Do you own initiatives or do you lack agency?
5. Adversity and Resilience
6. Antifragility
7. Being the underdog
8. Body language
9. Creativity
10. Desire
11. Emotional Intelligence
12. Habits
    1. Good Habits
    2. Bad Habits
13. Leadership
14. Life lessons
15. Mental Strength and Relaxed Confidence
16. Native American Wisdom
17. Parenting
18. Perception
19. Philosophy
20. Psychology
21. Quotes, Proverbs and Smart words from Smart people
22. Self esteem and Self improvement
23. Silence
24. Success
25. Subconscious mind
26. Book - The Two Mindsets by Carol Dweck
27. The Meaning of Competition
28. The Meaning of Winning
29. Willpower
30. You have the primary responsibility to do something if your life is not how it should be

Your mindset is the lens through which you see the world. If that lens is broken or sketchy, it is going to effect how to see and move through the world. The clearer your mindset, the more clearly you will triangulate your targets, avoid obstacles, and move directly towards your goals. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is a good book to help with this.

Park your ego at the door.

You can have anything in life, but you can’t have everything. Figure out what it is that you want, pay that price and don’t look back. Just park your ego at the door and keep moving forward.

Health

Look at the “health” notes.

For most people, this is the easiest place to start and the one that will pay the biggest dividends.

The healthy man wants a thousand things, the sick man wants but one - Seneca

If you don’t have your health, then what do you really have? Regardless of where you are on your health journey, these are the three areas to focus on for the maxiumum effect.

1. Exercise
2. Nutrition
3. Sleep

Wealth

Chances are, you didn’t grow up in a family that talked about finances. It is not something they teach in school. If you look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, before we can worry about self-actualization, we have to worry about solving for our physical and shelter needs. Solving for this sphere will have a big influence on your life. Money doesn’t solve all your problems but it does solve all your money problems. Learn the rules of the money game.

To get wealthy, you have to start trading your time for money and the best way to do that is by owning a business. You don’t have to be very enterpreneural. You don’t have to have a lemonade stand or pluck flowers in the neighborhood and sell it back to them. The connection between the input of time and the output of money is powerful.

Consumerism and life-style creep

Once you get to a point where you can satisfy the basic needs and you can afford that new car, new apartment, new everything, you go buy it. Don’t fall into that trap.

You have to invest everything you possibly can. It can feel overwhelming. It is not something we learn growing up. Most of us are afraid we will make a mistake. Don’t go looking for financial advisors or brokers. If you want to win the money game, you have to know the rules. You can’t rely on someone else telling you what to do. You have to do your own research on everything under the sun.

Skills

Skills are probably the best investments you can make. Once acquired, they continue paying dividends for the rest of your life. The trick then, is to figure out what the most beneficial skills to acquire?

You are paid in proportion to the magnitude of the problems that you solve. - Elon Musk

If you have a baseline of skills in a lot of different areas, but none that are particularly valuable, you need to think about it.

If the skills that you have today are not solving problems with real magnitude, you need to think about it.

Ask around. Reach out to mentors and successful people that you can find and find out what the most valuable skills that you need to develop are.

The importance of Coaching and Mentors

e.g.

1. The skill of discipline - the ability to hold yourself accountable and actually do the things that you said you would.
2. Communication - your ability to communicate with the world - whether it is through spoken word on video, or one on one conversations with friends, body language, or through the written word, we are constantly communicating with the world. But often, not very well. If you want to have maximum impact or influence on the world, you have to be able to communicate effectively. Start by assessing your current skills. Create a list of all the skills that you are the best at. And create another list of skills that your future self possesses. What skills will that person have? Write them down. Now you have a map to get from where you are right now to where you want to be. All you have to do is focus everyday on becoming marginally better at one of those skills. In 3, 5, 10 years, you are going to be unrecognizably better. This is what it means to be focusing on the process, on the things within your control, and not on the results.